I think you hit the nail right on the head with your “The M.I.C.E. Quotient post. If only every developer was forced to read and comprehend that post we might not have quite as many spectacularly messy bloated games today.
We just don’t have the technology to make the kinds of games these developers are after. They want to make game for the Holodeck on the U.S.S Enterprise but they can’t because A.I. necessary to pull off that kind of game is far off into the future.
Point-and-click games and visual novels seem to handle idea based stories well. But they are noticeably limited in terms of choices the player can make. All the choices have to be pre-written by the developers. We still haven’t gotten to the point were those games can except real input from users.
The M.I.C.E. Quotient is really writing 101 for many classes and beginning writing books. For example, you will find it in Orson Scott Card’s book on ‘how to write science fiction’ aimed at beginner science fiction writers. All mediums have a craft. Just as game makers have developed a recognition of basic and more advanced principles of what makes a video game, just as musicians and movie makers have understood their craft, so too have writers done the same for ‘stories’. Since something like ‘writing’ is a very old medium, there is staggering amount of craft detail.
Games are an interactive medium. The gamer is limited to his buttons and movements of the controller. On PCs, it is a little better as the player has a full keyboard. But that is also pushing buttons.
The brain naturally has a filter which is used to remove information that is not necessary to what the brain wants to do. When you are playing a video game and a cutscene appears, the brain likely filters the cutscene out and makes it ‘background scenery’. However, when you are watching a movie, the brain completely absorbs what is going on the screen. For another example, if you are reading text and pages of it in a video game, the brain will want to filter that out. However, if you are reading a novel the brain will process the text as the central thing.
There is something about the video game where the mind will focus entirely on what the player can do (“What I can do”) and tend to shove the other stuff to the side. The only times I think the gamer’s mind is fully engaged on text or cutscenes and other stuff may be in the introduction of the game (before you start playing) and the ending of the game (when you stop playing). Also, the player appears to better absorb “story” and all when it is firmly placed between levels and the player knows he is not playing. An example of this would be, say, Wing Commander 2 or even the original NES Ninja Gaiden. Lately, games have been putting in ‘in-game’ cutscenes which I believe the mind is ‘filtering’ out more because it is still in ‘play mode’. The more developers try to blur the lines between ‘story/cutscenes’ and ‘game’, the more the mind will filter it out and the developers’ hard work won’t be processed by the gamer.
It is very fascinating asking gamers to recount their previous play experiences.. especially in the games they love. What they always seem to do is they talk about the game not in terms of a character they are controlling but that they are the character. When the character jumps, they jump. When the character gets a new item, they get a new item.
Let’s look at Mega Man. No one really sees him as a ‘character’. They see him as themselves. And the ‘story’ the fuses in the player’s mind is not the text or cutscenes that roll from the game, it is the player’s actions and decisions. “I got the Metal Blade!” squeals the gamer triumphantly. He does not say, “Mega Man got the Metal Blade” even if the game says that.
One thing I am excited to see in Zelda Wii is how different ways you can kill the enemy. Two people can play the same exact game and, when they talk about the game, they will realize they are playing it differently. One person will say, “I don’t use the bow and arrow. I just roll bombs into them!” And another person could say, “I prefer to throw my bombs.”
Consider the original Super Mario Brothers, which is a type of gold standard in gaming. It was one of the first times that there were so many ways to approach an enemy. You could jump on them. You could use a turtle shell on them. You could use fireballs. You could use a star. You could hit the block from underneath them. You could even avoid them altogether. Certainly, this was partly responsible for Super Mario Brothers becoming a magical game. In most games at the time, there were few options left to the player.
Even in Donkey Kong, the player had options such as using the hammer. The hammer in Donkey Kong is not necessary. The game can be played without it. But the experience would not have been the same without the hammer.
Western studios thinks giving the player options means ‘branching story paths’. I don’t think this is the solution at all. It is the extent of choosing one cutscene path over another. If they wish to increase the ‘story’ of a game, try increasing the player’s interactivity with the game.
The more I think about it, the more I realize how Super Mario Brothers was not a simple game. There are so many ways to take out an enemy, for example. Yet, none of this was ‘too daunting’ for the brand new gamer. And we know that Super Mario Brothers was played by people who have never played a video game before, and they became gamers for life.
And if you recall, the original Zeldas, as opposed to the games that were currently out, also had a very rich way a player could choose to dispatch an enemy or interact with the adventure. In the original Zelda, you had your sword. But you also had other items from bombs, bows, boomerang, the magic wand, and so on. And the more I think about it, almost all the hit games from that period of time allowed players many ways to defeat enemies. Here is a partial list from the NES Era…
Mega Man- Numero Uno example of how this IP jumped to the forefront. Mega Man is all about acquiring new weapons which gives the players all sorts of fun choices to go through stages and defeat enemies.
Ninja Gaiden- You could get different items and the player would learn to choose certain ones for certain parts of the game.
Contra- Different weapons were available to the player from lasers, to scatter gun, and so on.
Double Dragon- Remember all the different ways you could attack an enemy? You could punch, you could kick, you could jump kick, and so on.
Gradius- A prime example. Gradius differed from previous space shooters because you could choose different weapons for your little space ship.
Dragon Quest- You could choose what weapons and armor you had. You could choose to attack or cast spells or even run away.
Final Fantasy- You chose the classes of your party as well as the equipment and what types of attacks they would do.
Metroid- Metroid is not about going from one item to another. In Metroid, you could kill enemies in different ways. You could use your gun, you could use bombs, you could use the Screw Attack, you could just freeze them in place and move on.
You get the pattern. Video games are a very young medium. No one fully understands the ‘craft’ of it because it is so young. The movie medium is much older. The writing medium, of course, is way, way older. But with Nintendo looking back at the long line of classic games on up to the present day, I think we may be starting to see the first real detailing of the craft that is unique to video games as a medium.
The news of E3 comes all at once in an avalanche, and it takes days to process all the news. What I’m realizing now is that Zelda Wii was initially going to be something else, and this is why I thought Zelda Wii wouldn’t be too much and perhaps we would have to see the game after in order to see the necessary changes. But I am getting the impression that Miyamoto dropped in, upended the tea table, and began to move the game in the correct direction (such as using Motion Plus) and putting in an interesting combat system. So I am very much looking forward to Zelda Wii where before I wasn’t.
Let’s use this handy dandy graphic again:
When games would become bloated with “story”, I believe it is because the developer was being the guy to the left who says, “Buy this because I kick ass.” This is one reason why I hate the ‘Game God’ worship. ‘Kojima kicks ass. Therefore, you should buy Kojima’s game.” I want it to be the picture on the right where it says, “Buy this because we want YOU to kick ass.” When gaming is made more accessible for example, the thinking is about letting the customer kick ass.
When a bloated story appears in a game, the gamers begin to complain. “This is bloated,” they say. And the developer perhaps interprets these complaints personally as in the DEVELOPER doesn’t kick ass. But, of course, a game is not about the developer. The game is about the player. The player is the only one who has the right to be selfish. The player only cares about him kicking ass. If the player is not kicking ass, he will be frustrated and not like the game.
“I am going to make a game that is more amazing than movies!” says a developer as he makes some gigantic story and plot for a game. The problem is that the developer is focusing on HIM kicking ass instead of the GAMER kicking ass. Let us say there is a high barrier with controls. The gamer gets frustrated. The developer will say, “You do not kick ass because you are stupid. You are retarded. I kick ass. I am Master Devel0per. You must conform to my conditions.” The gamer will just leave and not come back.
Can a video game change your life? The children who grew up with Super Mario Brothers and Zelda say it did. Games like Wii Fit are definitely changing people’s lives which explains its insane sales.
Video games are such a young medium that it is going to be fun for current game makers to “go exploring”. What they discover in the next few decades will be echoed centuries from now.
